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Design by story-telling
Applied Ergonomics1993, 24 (1), 15-18
Design by story-telling Bill Moggridge I D E O , 7-8 Jeffrey's Place, Jeffrey's Street, London NW1 9PP, U K T h e p a p e r l o o k s at a f o u r - s t e p p r o c e s s to facilitate design f o r a p a r t i c u l a r m a r k e t , in this case old p e o p l e . A k e y e l e m e n t is to e n a b l e the visualization o f possible design s o l u t i o n s a n d f o r this an i m p o r t a n t i n g r e d i e n t has b e e n f o u n d to b e story-telling a b o u t w h a t p e o p l e w a n t a n d s c e n a r i o building f o r p r o d u c t s a n d services in use. This is p a r t i c u l a r l y t r u e w h e n crossing n a t i o n a l b o u n d a r i e s , a n d s o m e d e m o g r a p h i c a n d g e o g r a p h i c d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n t h e U S A a n d E u r o p e are highlighted.
Keywords: Ageing, design, scenario building
Introduction Yuppie elbow is a phrase that was coined at the height of the personal computer expansion in the mid1980s in the USA and it was said to be caused by people who were starting to carry around not just briefcases but also heavy personal computers. This stretched their elbow joints and made their tendons slide back and forth in a painful way. Now I don't really have this problem because I've had a personal computer, I have it because I have been carrying a lot of baggage around the world for many years and this has given me a Yuppie elbow. If I carry anything heavy with my arms stretched, it hurts, so I always try to keep them bent, and to keep my right arm less heavily loaded than my left because that one does not have a Yuppie elbow. Since I am approaching 50 this makes me feel I have a 75-year-old elbow, which is quite revealing because it makes me think about what the rest of me is going to be like in the next 25 years and, as a designer, encourages me to put energy into trying to understand and into designing for my future self.
A four-step process for design This type of experience helps one to understand what it may be like being old. This is the first step of a fourstep process that I D E O uses to design for people. The next step is to observe. One of the best cases of observation on what old people really do and how they cope with the built and designed environment was the way Patricia Moore addressed the problem in the USA 1. She tried to experience the world as a woman in her 80s might, using physical restraints in the form of body braces, a splint behind the knee and taping her fingers together to simulate physical changes associated with ageing. She also used make-up to change the appearance of her face, and put drops in her eyes to make them uncomfortable. She repeated this experience in many towns and cities in the USA. Observation is Vol 24 No 1 February 1993
essential to understand what it is like to be other than oneself; to avoid the danger of designing for oneself alone we need a process to help us to step outside our own experience. It is not always necessary to go as far as Patricia Moore, but an observation process is an important part of designing for people. The third step is to visualize a different scenario, without an initial constraint to the technical and financial implications. This is where the most creative part comes in; scenario building or story-telling becomes a key feature. Three different scenarios are illustrated here. The first scenario is about train travel. Observation has been done on making a journey and now a storytelling technique is used to visualize the solution. Lillian is a senior citizen. She was encouraged to tell a story about what she wants on a train journey. She is short-sighted and has some hearing difficulty. It is important to her that her train arrives at platform level so that it is possible to wheel something across from the platform to the train. Also, she needs markings on the platform to tell her where the doors are going to be. Remote booking is possible in this future scenario, so that her daughter can make the booking for her, and order the meal on the train and the seat that she wanted. It is important that Lillian's seat faces the other seats rather than all facing the same way, so that she can chat to her neighbours opposite. There is a delivery service for the meals so that she doesn't have to get up from her seat but can have the meal brought to her. There are LCD-based blinds which offer a very subtle variable adjustment, so that she can avoid the glare which affects older eyes, and she has a simple, easy-to-read control to operate the blinds. She found it helpful to have an alarm call booked when she booked the original journey which would wake her up ten minutes before arrival. H e r trolley is securely locked and she has identification for it when she arrives.
0003-6870/93/01 0015-04 $03.00 (~ 1993 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd
15
Design by story-telling The scenario-building strategy can be used as a means of focusing on the detailing of components, controls and other features which need to be integrated into the design of complex environments - the driving controls of a car for example (see Figure 3) - and is especially helpful in considering the needs of older people.
Figure 1 Concept for Ascan Scandia: Liilian the senior citizen enjoys crossword games on the tabletop computer and calls her daughter on the hand-held telephone (IDEO Product Development) Perhaps these possibilities seem too good to be true - a slightly unreal world that we are unlikely ever to live in - but the scenario is feasible with currently available technology, and in fact easy to achieve. The question is not that such futures are difficult to achieve; it is whether designers are prepared to use scenariobuilding strategies to help them envisage such futures and then go on to design for them (see Figure 1). The second scenario led to a concept solution which utilizes available technology. Dr Yoshida is a Japanese gentleman in his mid-80s. He likes to drive but finds it difficult to open the door because his hands have assumed a claw-like shape. The result of our scenario building led to a handle designed to make it easy given that particular disability. The challenge lay in engineering the mechanism so that the door opens and closes when Dr Yoshida's hand touches the door handle gently. In this case, complicated mechanics lead to a solution which is simple for the user to operate, and hence good for him (see Figure 2).
The third example of scenario building is not based on a design objective, as was the train journey, nor on design for a particular person, as for Dr Yoshida, but on design in general. This scenario-building is used in designing for the multi-faceted characteristics of a range of people. Designers are familiar with, and use, the ideas of anthropometric variation, but there are no readily available data for many other physiological and psychological characteristics, particularly when dealing with the elderly. Here it is useful to keep in mind a range of specific people, representing the ends of the range for whom one has to design. To give an example, one of my people is a granny in Minnesota. She is in her mid-80s, and has lived in Minnesota all her life. She earned her living as a book-keeper, but is now retired. She was brought up on a farm; she is conservative and 'mid-West' in her views, but she has a good strong personality. I like her a lot. She used to play the piano but she cannot any longer because of her hands; she enjoys Scrabble. When I am designing something, I ask myself: 'Would granny in Minnesota like it?' The final step in the four-step process is evaluation: user evaluation with a full range of the people for whom the designed product or service is intended. One of I D E O ' s products is an aid to help deliver eyedrops for somebody who is infirm with shaking hands and worried about the drop bottle going into their eyes (see Figure 4). It is a small polypropylene moulding which encapsulates the bottle; it positions the tip at the right distance from the eye and allows you to squeeze it with less force (see Figure 5). Note how this design aids everyone and can therefore be described as transgenerational, good for many ages and states of being.
i~iii! ¸¸
Figure 2 Concept car: power-assisted door handle designed for the elderly (IDEO Product Development) 16
Figure 3 Concept car scenario: using a car telephone without having to take one's eyes off the road (IDEO Product Development) Applied Ergonomics
B MOGGRIDGE
Figure 6 Remote hearing aid controller designed like a pen for Resound (IDEO Product Development)
Figure 4 Eyedropper for Clement Clarke: designed to be used with most conventional eye drops bottles (IDEO Product Development) Recognizing that products are used by many, and very different, people is as important to marketing as it is to design. Our needs change with age and with our physical state. My 'Yuppie Elbow' could be described as an impairment, as could a sporting injury, and all of us will experience temporary and longer-lasting impairments at different times in our lives. Whether such impairment leads to disability is very much to do with how well designers consider the varying needs and abilities of users of all ages. The concept of affordance
Figure 5 Eyedropper bottle holder aids control, grip and positioning while drops are being self-administered (IDEO Product Development) Voi 2 4 N o 1 February 1993
is helpful in this context: making sure that controls and information are accessible and visible 2. This concept is one to which designers have returned after a period of being very careful to hide things by making them beautiful and sleek so that the handles and switches were hidden. Affordance does not mean design which is grossly obvious. One example is a hearing aid controller which, while looking like a pen, has a relatively simple design for the control, using a small radio communicator with the embedded earpiece to increase and decrease volume or to set channels. Pulled out of a pocket it does not look intrusive and certainly does not stigmatize (see Figure 6). Nor does an emergency call unit if it is designed to be worn as a pendant (see Figure 7). In this case the combination of practicality, ease of use and modern styling make it indistinguishable from a paging device - which is precisely what it is.
Figure 7 Emergency call unit worn as a pendant: designed for Nynex (IDEO Product Development) 17
Design by story-telling To summarize, I D E O uses a four-step process: 1 2 3 4
understand; observe; visualize; evaluate;
for which the key point between steps 2 and 3 is storytelling or scenario building.
Differences between the USA and Europe The four-step process becomes particularly important when design is intended to cross national boundaries. There are some important differences between the USA and Europe. In 1985 there were 28.5 million Americans over the age of 65: that is almost 12% of the population 3. By the year 2030 that number is projected to rise to 51.6 million: over 20% of the population 4. These people have the highest level of disposable income of any age group and they account for over threesquarters of the total financial assets found in the USA . Most of them own homes. They are mortgage-free. They buy American cars, and they are responsible for more than a third of all consumer-rated purchases. They spend more per capita than any other age group on groceryshopping trips. A quarter of all the alcohol is consumed by them. They are receiving more than a third of all the health care and medication. They show as the highest level of consistent voting in elections; they turn out and they offer their time and services for volunteer activities more than anyone else. Starting in 1985 grandparents began spending more annually on purchases related to education and entertainment of children than the parents 6. Grandparents were better off and more able to spend on the children than the parents and are often responsible for hire purchases, so the idea of them being largely povertystricken is not statistically true. There are a lot of people who are suffering from poverty and age, but at the same time in the market research context there is considerable room for these people to spend and be important in terms of the economy of product development 7. The main difference between the USA and Europe lies in the large numbers of people who retire and move in the USA. Phoenix, Arizona was the fastest-growing city in the USA in the 1980s, and the expansion was accounted for by people over 60, with huge new communities, purpose-designed and built for people to grow old in. People will spend their lives working
18
somewhere and then move to somewhere else to spend another active segment of their life in a community specifically for that purpose. This geographical differentiation is difficult for Europeans to understand as they are 'segmented' into countries. The second difference is geographical in a different sense. One can observe a wonderful selection of old folks having a great time with the rest of their lives in the beautiful places of America, particularly on the West Coast with its mountains, national parks and lakes. When going off to enjoy oneself for a holiday or a weekend, it seems that one always come across couples who have endless time to talk and relax. They are usually driving a big pick-up truck or some sort of van with an Airstream trailer. They tell of how they have been on the road for five years so far; they've only seen a tenth of America and are really enjoying it. They are taking advantage of being able to swap the home in which they brought up their family for something on wheels and to travel around that huge geographical space which they regard as their heritage. The results of such observations indicate that old people in the USA are important in the economy of product development. They are often localized in sunbelt areas and may not live the kind of settled lifestyle that stereotypes would have one suppose. Furthermore, in January 1992, the 'Access for Disabled America' law was established, which has the aim of guaranteeing equal opportunity in employment, in public accommodation, in transport and in telecommunications for people with all disabilities. Although not directed at the elderly, it will benefit them, and will certainly make similar demands in its ambitious programme for design.
References 1 Conn, C P and Moore, P Disguised Word Books, Waco, Texas (1985) 2 Norman, D The design of everyday things Doubleday (1990) 3 Demography factbook Centre for Exploitation of Science and Technology, London (1991) p 78 4 Pirkl, J and Babic, A Guidelines and strategies for designing transgenerational products: An instructors manual Copley Publishing Group, USA (1988) 5 Bedway, B 'Future Perfect' Metropolis New York (June 1987) 6 Moore, P in Statements American Center For Design (Spring 1991) 7 Bartos, R 'Older people in the United States - the invisible consumer market' in Buck, S F (ed) The 55+ market: Exploring a golden business opportunity McGraw-Hill (1990) pp 101-120
Applied Ergonomics
Design by story-telling Bill Moggridge I D E O , 7-8 Jeffrey's Place, Jeffrey's Street, London NW1 9PP, U K T h e p a p e r l o o k s at a f o u r - s t e p p r o c e s s to facilitate design f o r a p a r t i c u l a r m a r k e t , in this case old p e o p l e . A k e y e l e m e n t is to e n a b l e the visualization o f possible design s o l u t i o n s a n d f o r this an i m p o r t a n t i n g r e d i e n t has b e e n f o u n d to b e story-telling a b o u t w h a t p e o p l e w a n t a n d s c e n a r i o building f o r p r o d u c t s a n d services in use. This is p a r t i c u l a r l y t r u e w h e n crossing n a t i o n a l b o u n d a r i e s , a n d s o m e d e m o g r a p h i c a n d g e o g r a p h i c d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n t h e U S A a n d E u r o p e are highlighted.
Keywords: Ageing, design, scenario building
Introduction Yuppie elbow is a phrase that was coined at the height of the personal computer expansion in the mid1980s in the USA and it was said to be caused by people who were starting to carry around not just briefcases but also heavy personal computers. This stretched their elbow joints and made their tendons slide back and forth in a painful way. Now I don't really have this problem because I've had a personal computer, I have it because I have been carrying a lot of baggage around the world for many years and this has given me a Yuppie elbow. If I carry anything heavy with my arms stretched, it hurts, so I always try to keep them bent, and to keep my right arm less heavily loaded than my left because that one does not have a Yuppie elbow. Since I am approaching 50 this makes me feel I have a 75-year-old elbow, which is quite revealing because it makes me think about what the rest of me is going to be like in the next 25 years and, as a designer, encourages me to put energy into trying to understand and into designing for my future self.
A four-step process for design This type of experience helps one to understand what it may be like being old. This is the first step of a fourstep process that I D E O uses to design for people. The next step is to observe. One of the best cases of observation on what old people really do and how they cope with the built and designed environment was the way Patricia Moore addressed the problem in the USA 1. She tried to experience the world as a woman in her 80s might, using physical restraints in the form of body braces, a splint behind the knee and taping her fingers together to simulate physical changes associated with ageing. She also used make-up to change the appearance of her face, and put drops in her eyes to make them uncomfortable. She repeated this experience in many towns and cities in the USA. Observation is Vol 24 No 1 February 1993
essential to understand what it is like to be other than oneself; to avoid the danger of designing for oneself alone we need a process to help us to step outside our own experience. It is not always necessary to go as far as Patricia Moore, but an observation process is an important part of designing for people. The third step is to visualize a different scenario, without an initial constraint to the technical and financial implications. This is where the most creative part comes in; scenario building or story-telling becomes a key feature. Three different scenarios are illustrated here. The first scenario is about train travel. Observation has been done on making a journey and now a storytelling technique is used to visualize the solution. Lillian is a senior citizen. She was encouraged to tell a story about what she wants on a train journey. She is short-sighted and has some hearing difficulty. It is important to her that her train arrives at platform level so that it is possible to wheel something across from the platform to the train. Also, she needs markings on the platform to tell her where the doors are going to be. Remote booking is possible in this future scenario, so that her daughter can make the booking for her, and order the meal on the train and the seat that she wanted. It is important that Lillian's seat faces the other seats rather than all facing the same way, so that she can chat to her neighbours opposite. There is a delivery service for the meals so that she doesn't have to get up from her seat but can have the meal brought to her. There are LCD-based blinds which offer a very subtle variable adjustment, so that she can avoid the glare which affects older eyes, and she has a simple, easy-to-read control to operate the blinds. She found it helpful to have an alarm call booked when she booked the original journey which would wake her up ten minutes before arrival. H e r trolley is securely locked and she has identification for it when she arrives.
0003-6870/93/01 0015-04 $03.00 (~ 1993 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd
15
Design by story-telling The scenario-building strategy can be used as a means of focusing on the detailing of components, controls and other features which need to be integrated into the design of complex environments - the driving controls of a car for example (see Figure 3) - and is especially helpful in considering the needs of older people.
Figure 1 Concept for Ascan Scandia: Liilian the senior citizen enjoys crossword games on the tabletop computer and calls her daughter on the hand-held telephone (IDEO Product Development) Perhaps these possibilities seem too good to be true - a slightly unreal world that we are unlikely ever to live in - but the scenario is feasible with currently available technology, and in fact easy to achieve. The question is not that such futures are difficult to achieve; it is whether designers are prepared to use scenariobuilding strategies to help them envisage such futures and then go on to design for them (see Figure 1). The second scenario led to a concept solution which utilizes available technology. Dr Yoshida is a Japanese gentleman in his mid-80s. He likes to drive but finds it difficult to open the door because his hands have assumed a claw-like shape. The result of our scenario building led to a handle designed to make it easy given that particular disability. The challenge lay in engineering the mechanism so that the door opens and closes when Dr Yoshida's hand touches the door handle gently. In this case, complicated mechanics lead to a solution which is simple for the user to operate, and hence good for him (see Figure 2).
The third example of scenario building is not based on a design objective, as was the train journey, nor on design for a particular person, as for Dr Yoshida, but on design in general. This scenario-building is used in designing for the multi-faceted characteristics of a range of people. Designers are familiar with, and use, the ideas of anthropometric variation, but there are no readily available data for many other physiological and psychological characteristics, particularly when dealing with the elderly. Here it is useful to keep in mind a range of specific people, representing the ends of the range for whom one has to design. To give an example, one of my people is a granny in Minnesota. She is in her mid-80s, and has lived in Minnesota all her life. She earned her living as a book-keeper, but is now retired. She was brought up on a farm; she is conservative and 'mid-West' in her views, but she has a good strong personality. I like her a lot. She used to play the piano but she cannot any longer because of her hands; she enjoys Scrabble. When I am designing something, I ask myself: 'Would granny in Minnesota like it?' The final step in the four-step process is evaluation: user evaluation with a full range of the people for whom the designed product or service is intended. One of I D E O ' s products is an aid to help deliver eyedrops for somebody who is infirm with shaking hands and worried about the drop bottle going into their eyes (see Figure 4). It is a small polypropylene moulding which encapsulates the bottle; it positions the tip at the right distance from the eye and allows you to squeeze it with less force (see Figure 5). Note how this design aids everyone and can therefore be described as transgenerational, good for many ages and states of being.
i~iii! ¸¸
Figure 2 Concept car: power-assisted door handle designed for the elderly (IDEO Product Development) 16
Figure 3 Concept car scenario: using a car telephone without having to take one's eyes off the road (IDEO Product Development) Applied Ergonomics
B MOGGRIDGE
Figure 6 Remote hearing aid controller designed like a pen for Resound (IDEO Product Development)
Figure 4 Eyedropper for Clement Clarke: designed to be used with most conventional eye drops bottles (IDEO Product Development) Recognizing that products are used by many, and very different, people is as important to marketing as it is to design. Our needs change with age and with our physical state. My 'Yuppie Elbow' could be described as an impairment, as could a sporting injury, and all of us will experience temporary and longer-lasting impairments at different times in our lives. Whether such impairment leads to disability is very much to do with how well designers consider the varying needs and abilities of users of all ages. The concept of affordance
Figure 5 Eyedropper bottle holder aids control, grip and positioning while drops are being self-administered (IDEO Product Development) Voi 2 4 N o 1 February 1993
is helpful in this context: making sure that controls and information are accessible and visible 2. This concept is one to which designers have returned after a period of being very careful to hide things by making them beautiful and sleek so that the handles and switches were hidden. Affordance does not mean design which is grossly obvious. One example is a hearing aid controller which, while looking like a pen, has a relatively simple design for the control, using a small radio communicator with the embedded earpiece to increase and decrease volume or to set channels. Pulled out of a pocket it does not look intrusive and certainly does not stigmatize (see Figure 6). Nor does an emergency call unit if it is designed to be worn as a pendant (see Figure 7). In this case the combination of practicality, ease of use and modern styling make it indistinguishable from a paging device - which is precisely what it is.
Figure 7 Emergency call unit worn as a pendant: designed for Nynex (IDEO Product Development) 17
Design by story-telling To summarize, I D E O uses a four-step process: 1 2 3 4
understand; observe; visualize; evaluate;
for which the key point between steps 2 and 3 is storytelling or scenario building.
Differences between the USA and Europe The four-step process becomes particularly important when design is intended to cross national boundaries. There are some important differences between the USA and Europe. In 1985 there were 28.5 million Americans over the age of 65: that is almost 12% of the population 3. By the year 2030 that number is projected to rise to 51.6 million: over 20% of the population 4. These people have the highest level of disposable income of any age group and they account for over threesquarters of the total financial assets found in the USA . Most of them own homes. They are mortgage-free. They buy American cars, and they are responsible for more than a third of all consumer-rated purchases. They spend more per capita than any other age group on groceryshopping trips. A quarter of all the alcohol is consumed by them. They are receiving more than a third of all the health care and medication. They show as the highest level of consistent voting in elections; they turn out and they offer their time and services for volunteer activities more than anyone else. Starting in 1985 grandparents began spending more annually on purchases related to education and entertainment of children than the parents 6. Grandparents were better off and more able to spend on the children than the parents and are often responsible for hire purchases, so the idea of them being largely povertystricken is not statistically true. There are a lot of people who are suffering from poverty and age, but at the same time in the market research context there is considerable room for these people to spend and be important in terms of the economy of product development 7. The main difference between the USA and Europe lies in the large numbers of people who retire and move in the USA. Phoenix, Arizona was the fastest-growing city in the USA in the 1980s, and the expansion was accounted for by people over 60, with huge new communities, purpose-designed and built for people to grow old in. People will spend their lives working
18
somewhere and then move to somewhere else to spend another active segment of their life in a community specifically for that purpose. This geographical differentiation is difficult for Europeans to understand as they are 'segmented' into countries. The second difference is geographical in a different sense. One can observe a wonderful selection of old folks having a great time with the rest of their lives in the beautiful places of America, particularly on the West Coast with its mountains, national parks and lakes. When going off to enjoy oneself for a holiday or a weekend, it seems that one always come across couples who have endless time to talk and relax. They are usually driving a big pick-up truck or some sort of van with an Airstream trailer. They tell of how they have been on the road for five years so far; they've only seen a tenth of America and are really enjoying it. They are taking advantage of being able to swap the home in which they brought up their family for something on wheels and to travel around that huge geographical space which they regard as their heritage. The results of such observations indicate that old people in the USA are important in the economy of product development. They are often localized in sunbelt areas and may not live the kind of settled lifestyle that stereotypes would have one suppose. Furthermore, in January 1992, the 'Access for Disabled America' law was established, which has the aim of guaranteeing equal opportunity in employment, in public accommodation, in transport and in telecommunications for people with all disabilities. Although not directed at the elderly, it will benefit them, and will certainly make similar demands in its ambitious programme for design.
References 1 Conn, C P and Moore, P Disguised Word Books, Waco, Texas (1985) 2 Norman, D The design of everyday things Doubleday (1990) 3 Demography factbook Centre for Exploitation of Science and Technology, London (1991) p 78 4 Pirkl, J and Babic, A Guidelines and strategies for designing transgenerational products: An instructors manual Copley Publishing Group, USA (1988) 5 Bedway, B 'Future Perfect' Metropolis New York (June 1987) 6 Moore, P in Statements American Center For Design (Spring 1991) 7 Bartos, R 'Older people in the United States - the invisible consumer market' in Buck, S F (ed) The 55+ market: Exploring a golden business opportunity McGraw-Hill (1990) pp 101-120
Applied Ergonomics